Season's Eatings!

Ten with Ken (Audio)

The “Ten with Ken” Holiday Special continues with part 2: Season’s Eatings!

Every year, baked goods and particularly gingerbread are prominent in higher ed holiday greeting videos. Often, we see students baking together, such as in a best-in-class vid from Wellesley College last year. More often than not, the bakers are joined by the school mascot, like Azul the Eagle at Florida Gulf Coast University. At Laurentian University, interim president Pierre Zundel made the rounds, spreading holiday cheer and deliciously empty calories around the campus library. At Cape Breton University, the cookies were a family recipe of mascot “the Caper”. At James Madison University, in Harrisburg Virginia, Duke the Dog likes to bake solo – but as a result, the cookies were shaped like dog treats!

Decorating gingerbread cookies is an event in and of itself. At William Paterson University, in New Jersey, president Helldobler hosted a cookie decorating party at his home. Stanford University included a life-sized gingerbread house in their holiday video – with decorations that looked good enough to eat! At Utah’s Dixie State University, president Biff Williams and his family get into a food fight while baking holiday cookies.

Gingerbread often sparks some friendly competition. At Boston University, students from Engineering and Fine Arts were pitted against each other to build the perfect gingerbread house, in an amusing best-in-class video. At the University of the Fraser Valley, culinary arts, indigenous visual art, and engineering push technology even further, creating an award-winning gingerbread house using a laser cutter. The University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee shared some amusing examples of gingerbread construction fails in another best-in-class video. Several holiday videos included campfire singalongs, like those from Algoma University or Trent University, toasting marshmallows or even making s’mores – like at Wheaton College in Massachusetts.

Quite a few institutions released recipe-style baking videos, including “high altitude baking tips” from Colorado State University, and a 350-year-old meat pie recipe from Loughborough University. More metaphorically, the University of Waterloo Faculty of the Environment shared their own secrets for success.

Gathering to share a holiday meal is a powerful ritual, explored in videos from Colorado College, Tarleton State University, the University of Toronto Mississauga, and the University of Windsor. But perhaps the most moving holiday video depicting a campus meal came from the University of Aberdeen. It depicted a student, away from loved ones, baking tarts to contribute to a holiday feast on campus with her friends. The warmth of the group shines through the cold winter night, as they stroll through the Aberdeen campus, and join the tree-lighting ceremony. Definitely a best in class, this was one of the overall besthigher ed holiday videos last year.

This episode contains clips from more than 500 higher ed holiday videos that Ken collected last year. You can find our full collection of 2018 videos on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLodJ8ParJmYXZ7unDyH9cDK-lwTwGul7B

And we’ve started collecting 2019 higher ed holiday videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLodJ8ParJmYXaztYot1vitgTZ5AHfAfJk

If you want to add one, please use this special link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLodJ8ParJmYXaztYot1vitgTZ5AHfAfJk&jct=Tm_lbyblL2ee4fhdD9En0aFVEu-NVg

Ten with Ken will be back in a few more days with part 3 of our Holiday Special, “When the Fur Flies” - featuring parodies of classic films and Christmas carols, multiple mascots, and plenty of wagging puppy dog tails. To be sure you don’t miss it, be sure to subscribe at http://eduvation.ca/subscribe/

Meanwhile, if you missed part 1, “Mid-Winter Magic,” you can catch it at https://youtu.be/NGWq5-4xWl0